From
the Editor: On March 4, 2002, the following story appeared in the Los Angeles
Times. It is a heartening reminder that blind people in many places are
breaking old stereotypes. Here it is:

London--By
conventional wisdom, David Blunkett should not have made it to the top of British
government. The home secretary is a politician who doesn't suffer fools. He
is unflinchingly blunt in an administration that weighs every word. And Blunkett,
the country's chief law enforcement officer, is blind.

Add to that the fact that his guide
dog threw up in the venerable House of Commons debating chamber‑‑most
impolite‑‑and Blunkett should be back in working‑class Sheffield,
where his early teachers suggested a career in piano tuning. Blunkett, however,
has never allowed conventional thinking to get in his way. Despite his hardships,
or perhaps because of them, he has risen to one of the most powerful posts in
Britain and is among the most effective members of Prime Minister Tony Blair's
Cabinet.

Increasingly he is mentioned as a
potential heir to the Labor Party leadership‑‑particularly by those
who dislike Gordon Brown, the ambitious chancellor of the exchequer‑‑whenever
Blair moves aside.

But could he‑‑would he‑‑do
the job at 10 Downing Street? And would Britain elect a blind prime minister?
"Fortunately, there isn't a vacancy," Blunkett said in an interview.
"It is unlikely that Britain would be ready for a blind prime minister
because it takes a long time for people to get used to the idea that someone
with a disability can work at the level I am working at now," he said.
“Besides,” he added, "I am working at my capacity, and I enjoy the job
I have very much."

Such candor from the fifty-four‑year‑old
Blunkett has not quashed speculation among the chattering classes. Nor has the
fact that the job of top cop rarely serves as a springboard to the prime minister's
office.

Blunkett's high standing is all the
more remarkable given the times, during which he has taken responsibility for
such controversial issues as immigration, law enforcement, and the nation's
security. He assumed the Home Office portfolio last summer as Britain's worst
race riots in decades broke out in northern England and a few months before
the September 11 attacks. The events thrust him to the forefront of debates
on race, crime, and civil rights almost before he had unpacked.

His responses have confounded critics
and allies alike. Blunkett offended many traditional Labor Party supporters
by threatening to use water cannons against rioters of South Asian ancestry.
He insisted that immigrants should learn English and adopt British ways when
coming into "our home," although most of the rioters were British‑born.
And he introduced detention centers for asylum seekers, a move long favored
by the opposition Tories.

On the other hand, he proposed a liberal,
green‑card‑style program to allow skilled and unskilled workers
into Britain to fill labor shortages. And although he is adamantly opposed to
the use of recreational drugs, Blunkett has in effect decriminalized marijuana
to free up police resources.

"David is interested in what
is going to be most effective in terms of achieving his policy outcome,"
said former aide Conor Ryan. "He made a pragmatic decision on cannabis
because he is concerned about hard drugs."

Blunkett's biggest battle so far has
been with human rights activists and leftist members of his own party over the
sweeping anti‑terrorism legislation he pushed through Parliament in December.

The law allows the government to detain,
indefinitely and without trial, foreigners suspected of links to terrorism if
they cannot legally be deported because of the threat of torture or death at
home. It also gives security officials unprecedented access to information from
schools, hospitals, tax authorities, passenger and freight carriers, and Internet
providers.

Blunkett's new powers have fueled
charges that Britain, already one of the most closely monitored societies in
the West, is becoming ever more of a Big Brother state.

"He is putting through authoritarian
policies which go against many civil liberties. He overreacted to terrorism
attacks with speed and almost panic," said political science professor
Vernon Bogdanor of Oxford University. Nonetheless, Britain's skeptical public
and highly critical media give Blunkett good reviews. Some people assert that
this is a reflection of his political skill, while others say no one wants to
be seen beating up on a blind man. Still others believe it is because Blunkett
is a rare politician.

"You can't help but like him,"
said Philip Johnston, home affairs editor for the conservative Daily Telegraph
newspaper, which is usually hostile to the Blair government. "The hardships
he has had to overcome are quite extraordinary. . . . He is likable, amusing;
he's not slick."

Gary Younge, a columnist for the left‑of‑center
Guardian newspaper who has slammed the home secretary for a "regressive"
approach to race issues, adds that Blunkett has "an emotional intelligence
lacking in the political leadership of all persuasions for some time. Mr. Blunkett
does not have to go off the record to sound like a human being."

Blunkett comes from a part of northern
England known for its plain‑spoken ways. Unlike most members of Parliament,
he represents an area where he was born and grew up. There is a Dickensian quality
to Blunkett's early life in industrial Sheffield, a city in South Yorkshire
whose dreariness was made famous by the 1997 film The Full Monty. Born
blind to loving parents who lived in one of the country's poorest housing projects,
he was sent to boarding school at age four because there were no day schools
that could cope with his disability.

When Blunkett was twelve, his foreman
father fell into a vat of boiling water on the job at the East Midlands Gas
Board and died an agonizing month later. The company refused to pay compensation
for two years, driving the family into a poverty that few, if any, British politicians
have known.

"There is nothing even faintly
romantic about being poor and hungry," Blunkett wrote in his 1995 autobiography,
On a Clear Day. But Blunkett has no patience for sentimentalism, least
of all about his own life. When asked about the hardships he has overcome, he
pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket and wipes mock tears from his eyes.

In an era of limited options for the
disabled and the working class, Blunkett went to night school to take college
preparation courses and then attended Sheffield University, where he graduated
as a teacher. He and his wife Ruth had three sons before they divorced in 1990.
He has not remarried.

Some Britons speak of Blunkett's success
as a kind of American dream, but he says there are differences. "The opportunities
I had, going to university and all those things, were built on other people
having made decisions that changed the world," Blunkett said.

"The individualism that's built
into the American psyche isn't here, and therefore we have to recognize that
we have a form of welfare state which, at its very best, provides the jumping‑off
point for people to improve their lives," he said. "At its worst it
cushions people to the point where they don't feel that necessity to take risks
and control over their own lives. Our task [as a government] is to get that
balance right."

Blunkett won a seat on the Sheffield
City Council at twenty-two, took over as leader of the Council in 1980, and
was elected to Parliament in 1987. When Labor won power ten years later, he
was named secretary of education and employment. During his four years in the
post he reduced class sizes and oversaw an improvement in national test scores.
He also introduced performance‑related pay for teachers and the country's
first university fees.

When Labor won a second term last
year, Blunkett was promoted to home secretary, where he is taking on police
reform and street crime along with international terrorism. His day begins with
briefings from aides, who go over newspapers and documents with him to find
out what he wants committed to tape or Braille. "What sighted people forget
is how much speed reading they do, moving from one page to another," said
Ryan, the former aide.

After a long day of meetings, hearings,
and sessions of Parliament, Blunkett takes a dozen or more tapes home in the
evening, Ryan said. The home secretary compensates for his lack of sight with
other senses. Blunkett easily recognizes voices and seems able to follow two
conversations at once‑‑even when he is holding one of them. And
he has an uncanny sense of when people have come and gone from a room, however
quietly they may move.

Blunkett stands tall and moves confidently
with the assistance of his dog Lucy, a black curly‑coated retriever mix‑breed.
When he meets someone new, he is quick to put the person at ease. He refuses
to adapt his language to his disability, often speaking of having "watched"
a television program or offering to "see you later."

"He hates terms like `visually
impaired,'" Ryan said. "He worries more about content than terminology."
That's the Yorkshireman in him, constituents said during one of his weekly trips
home to Sheffield.

When Blunkett arrived to speak to
tenant associations about his war on street crime, the headline greeting him
on the afternoon Star newspaper was "Police Chief Mugged."
Blunkett was unfazed. "They're no less vulnerable than anyone else. Nobody
is exempt," he said. "There's no point saying national crime statistics
show a 12 percent overall drop in crime last year if people don't actually experience
that in their own lives and families."

Brown, Blunkett's Cabinet colleague,
is generally presumed to be the one who will take over the party when Blair
is ready to step down. The chancellor of the exchequer has broad support among
Labor members of Parliament and the trade unions.

But Blunkett's rising star became
apparent to political reporter Colin Brown, who is no relation to the chancellor,
last summer at the launch of the home secretary's latest book, Politics and
Progress. The reception was attended by the in‑crowd of "new
Labor"‑‑the secretaries of health, transportation and education,
and Blair's wife, human rights lawyer Cherie Booth.

"Everybody
was there, and they weren't there just for moral support," said Brown of
London's Independent on Sunday newspaper. "It was easy to see what
was going on. They were saying that David has the support of Downing Street."